The War of the Ember (12 page)

W
e think that their target date for this…this vile hatching is the night of the lunar eclipse,” said Otulissa. With Cleve at her side, she was perched on the Ice Dagger, which jutted out from the depths of the Everwinter Sea. She and Cleve were telling Coryn what they’d learned in the Ice Narrows.

Coryn felt his gizzard quake. Owls had been talking forever about the peculiarities of young chicks who hatched on the night of a lunar eclipse. He himself had been born on such a night, as had his mother, and as had Hoole. In the back of his mind, a vague notion had been stirring. It was becoming clearer as Otulissa and Cleve related to him their discovery of the remnants of a strange egg in the Ice Narrows, and the horrible massacre at the Gray Rocks, and finally the alarming encounter with blue owls in the canyon of the Ice Talons. In an all-out war the Guardians might succeed in destroying the eggs and preventing the reentry of
nachtmagen into the world. But the problem of the ember would remain and the ember itself, with its strange unfathomable powers, seemed to attract its own kind of poison from the world and the creatures in it.

Even though he was deep in thought, Coryn followed what Otulissa was saying. “We have until the eclipse. We don’t know exactly where the eggs are but we have a pretty good idea. Cleve and I feel that if Nyra and the Striga could be lured away even, temporarily, we could destroy the eggs. We are sure more blue owls are being brought in to guard them but they are not there yet. I spoke to you about how we had encountered some kraals and they were an invaluable source of information on this. Cleve has learned much in his practice with Tengshu. I think he and I could handle whoever might be sent in to sit the eggs.”

Coryn felt a stirring deep in his gizzard. It was almost as if he could feel glints deep within it and then there dawned a sudden brightness in his head, an illumination in his brain. “Well, of course!”

“Of course what?”

“The way to get them away—‘lure’ them as you say—is with the ember.”

“But aren’t we trying to get the ember to the Middle Kingdom? Hide the ember? Not put it out
there as bait!” Otulissa was astonished by Coryn’s line of thinking.

“Otulissa.” Coryn looked at her steadily then swung his head toward Cleve. “The ember is the only way! Believe me. It is our only chance for getting at those eggs. Besides, I am far from certain that Gup Theosang will give permission to hide the ember in his kingdom. While we wait for word, it will serve as bait.”

“He’s right, Otulissa,” Cleve said.

“But how do we do it?”

“We will start with rumors of the ember.”

“Rumors of it where?” Otulissa asked. There was doubt in her voice.

“In the Beyond. That’s where it came from…” Coryn broke off speaking. He had started to say, “And that is where it belongs,” but he stopped.

“It’s very risky, I think,” Otulissa began, “using the ember this way…but…but…”

“Hagsfiends are risky,” Coryn said. “Nachtmagen is risky. It must be done,” Coryn said resolutely.

“Are you sure, Coryn?” Otulissa pressed. “You are risking everything.”

“But what will any of us have in a world with hagsfiends flying about?”

He turned now to Cleve. He did not want to argue
this point any longer. “You said that after you discovered the massacre at the Gray Rocks and your engagement with the blue owls in the Ice Narrows, you came across some kraals?”

“Yes, and gadfeathers. They had witnessed the carnage left by the massacre, and helped the few survivors get away. Needless to say, they are furious—and ready to fight.”

Coryn’s dark eyes glittered. “Could the two of you fly back to the great tree? Tell Madame Plonk that I would like her to fly to the Northern Kingdoms, to the places where the gadfeathers gather. See if she could muster a company of gadfeather owls, and kraals as well.”

“I don’t know if the gadfeathers can fight, Coryn,” Otulissa said. “I mean, they have no experience. They sing.”

“They are angry, Otulissa. Their own kind have been slaughtered. Don’t underestimate passion. The passion they put into their songs can be put into combat. And anybody from the Northern Kingdoms can handle a short blade.

“So,” Coryn continued. “Not only must you tell Madame Plonk to seek the help of the gadfeathers, but I have a special mission for Doc Finebeak.”

“Crows? You want him to recruit crows?” Otulissa asked.

“Yes!” Doc Finebeak had enjoyed a long and productive relationship with the very birds that most owls feared. Crows. He was revered by crows. “But more. I want him to go to Ambala.”

Coryn did not even need to finish the sentence. Otulissa knew exactly what he intended. If the Mysticus had instigated the turn in the Battle of the Book in the canyonlands the Greenowls of Ambala had turned the Battle of Balefire Night when the Striga and his followers had been driven from the tree with their help.

“And now, I must be off,” Coryn said.

“But where are you going?” Otulissa asked.

“It’s better that you not know for now, Otulissa.”

“Really?” There was a plaintive note in her voice. Otulissa was as close to Coryn as any owl in the great tree except Soren. It was she who had found him alone, despondent, an outcast in the Beyond. It had been Otulissa, a master collier herself, who had started to teach the young owl the fine art of colliering at the Sacred Ring of volcanoes.

Coryn was a natural. She had never seen an owl so quick to learn. Otulissa had watched him retrieve the Ember of Hoole. Many had tried to retrieve the ember
in the thousand years since Hoole had restored it to the volcanoes, but none had succeeded. Not until Coryn had come. Thus a special bond had been forged between the Spotted Owl and the young king. Otulissa had been as much of a confidante to Coryn as his uncle Soren.

Coryn now reached out with the tip of his port wing and touched her shoulder softly. “Don’t worry, old friend. It’s better you not know.”

“Of course.” Otulissa nodded. “Glaux speed, Coryn!” she murmured as she watched him spread his wings and lift off.

O
ne by one the owls had dropped out of the fast-scudding striated clouds into the mist that swirled around a rock that looked like a wolf’s fang on the far western edge of the Sea of Vastness. But now the rock was almost completely obscured by fog.
Perfect Ezylryb weather,
Soren thought. But Soren did not need visual cues to find the Wolf’s Fang. Tilting his head this way, then that, expanding and contracting his facial muscles to scoop up the finer nuances of the breaking waves as they encountered an obstacle in their course, he was able to triangulate the exact position of this rock entirely from sound clues. And, of course, he had Gylfie with him. The Elf Owl need not see the sun or the stars. The celestial charts were emblazoned on her brain. She could fly blindly through any weather and sense precisely how many points she was from, say, the port claw of the Little Raccoon constellation, on a night
when most birds would be thoroughly confused. Soren, however, was relieved to know that the others had already arrived at the Wolf’s Fang because he could hear the brush of the wind through their feathers.

He was full of hope now. Surely Tengshu would have gotten permission from the H’ryth for the passage of the ember. But uppermost in his mind at this moment before landing on the Wolf’s Fang was how to tell Twilight the unbelievable news that he had two brothers who were very much alive. He had asked Tavis and Cletus not to accompany them to the Wolf’s Fang, but rather to remain at the remote inlet where the Sea of Vastness furrowed in along a desolate stretch of the coastline. He needed to prepare Twilight for the meeting. But he was not sure how to do this. Tavis and Cletus had agreed to hang back but they were more than eager, indeed, almost feverish to meet their long-lost younger brother.

When Soren, Gylfie, and Wensel arrived, they were surprised to see not only Ruby, Martin, Fritha, and Digger, but Tengshu as well. Almost immediately, Soren sensed the despair that swirled as thickly as the fog around the rock.

“What is it?” he asked.

Tengshu shook his head slowly.

“You mean we can’t take it there?”

Tengshu sighed. “Correct. Theosang will not accept the ember. And that is not all. There’s another problem, Soren.”

“It’s awful,” Martin muttered.

“What is it? Tell me!” Soren was almost hopping up and down. His gizzard twitched madly.

“There have been more defections from the Dragon Court,” Tengshu said quietly.

“What?” Soren blinked. “What are you talking about?”

Tengshu quickly explained. Soren listened and nodded as each dreadful piece of information was revealed. He was beginning to learn what Otulissa, Cleve, and Coryn already knew. Finally, he spoke when Tengshu had finished. “So what you are telling me is that not only do we have no hope of sequestering this ember far away in a safe refuge in the Middle Kingdom, but by every indication these Dragon Court owls have been recruited by the Striga who has, as we know, joined forces with Nyra?”

The owls nodded.

Soren sighed. “What could be worse?”

And it was only seconds later that Primrose dropped out of the sky with a message clasped in her beak. “It’s urgent,” she said, giving it to Soren.

“It’s in code. Gylfie, you’re more fluent with the code than I am.”

They unfurled the scroll and with Twilight anchoring one end and Digger the other, Gylfie hunched over the message.

“It’s direct from Coryn. Well, the good news is that Coryn, for his own reasons, feels we should not under any circumstances take the ember to the Mountain of Time in the Middle Kingdom but…” She stopped translating abruptly.

“But what?” Twilight asked. Gylfie’s eyes, normally bright sunny as a day, darkened. “There are hagsfiends aborning—it will happen on the night of the lunar eclipse. To stop it we must use the ember as a lure, so the eggs will be left unguarded and can then be destroyed.”

“Of course!” Tengshu exclaimed. “That’s why the Dragon Court owls are here.” Tengshu paused. No one said a word. “You see, these Dragon Court owls are poor fighters, but they can be used for something much more dangerous.”

“What’s that?” Soren whispered.

“Broodies,” Tengshu said hoarsely. “Broodies to hatch hagsfiends, to bring back nachtmagen. It was all there in the second section of the Theo Papers, called The Obscura. Perhaps not stated directly, for that is the nature of the writings in the ‘Obscura.’ Reading the material is similar to conversing with scrooms—incomplete, many possible meanings. But there was an intimation that there could be a time when hagsfiends might return. Within the flabby gizzards of those Dragon Court owls are the seeds long dormant of…of…of…”

“Hagsfiends,” Digger said. “The Dragon Court owls were, you think, in earlier generations the hagsfiends from the Kingdom of N’yrthghar, the ones we read about in the legends?”

“No one knows for sure,” Tengshu replied.

“Theo did,” Digger said.

“Perhaps,” Tengshu replied quietly.

“He used the lure of the promise of everlasting power, splendor, and riches to lure them to the Dragon Court. And now we are to use the lure of the ember to prevent the rise of hagsfiends,” Soren said.

“So it seems.” Tengshu nodded.

“So it says, right here,” Gylfie said, looking up from the coded message. “And there is one more thing. A
slink melf is being dispatched by Coryn to the Ice Talons.”

“A slink melf?” Twilight said. “You mean an assassination squadron?”

“Yes, to finish off the eggs.”

“Who makes up the slink melf?” Twilight asked.

“The message doesn’t say. It just says it’s being ordered by Coryn. But it’s obviously not us. We are to report to the volcanoes of the Sacred Ring immediately.”

“All right, but we have to go by way of the inlet,” Soren said.

“But that’s out of the way, and what with this wind, it will slow us down,” Gylfie protested.

“No, I insist. I think ultimately it will help our cause,” Soren replied, thinking of the two Great Grays. Tavis and Cletus were incredibly cunning fliers, agile and quick just like their brother Twilight. The Guardians could use such help.

I
n a lava cave not far from the Sacred Ring of volcanoes, Coryn perched on a black outcropping and spoke to the first friend he had ever made in the desolate country known as Beyond the Beyond. Hamish, the once-lame gnaw wolf, had been listening attentively.

“So who composes this slink melf, Coryn?” Hamish asked. As all gnaw wolves of the MacDuncan clan, he had gone into training and become a member of the Watch at the Sacred Ring of volcanoes. When Coryn had retrieved the Ember of Hoole from H’rathghar, Hamish, as had been mystically prophesied in the time of Hoole, was cured of his lameness and allowed to return to normal life. Now these two old friends met again.

“I’ve just come from Gyllbane’s clan cave. You must know what she learned from the polar bear.”

Hamish nodded.

“So you know of the conspiracy between the Striga and Nyra.”

He nodded again.

“The eggs I just told you about—that is the slink melf’s mission: to destroy them and any owls that are brooding them.”

“I certainly didn’t know about the eggs, at least not what you are now telling me. Gyllbane, or rather, Namara, as she now should be called, is the best choice for the slink melf. And you say she is on her way?”

“Yes,” Coryn replied.

Hamish looked at Coryn carefully. “But you seem to have something more on your mind.”

Coryn sighed. He tipped his head down and studied his talons. He could not bring himself to say what he must say while looking into the green eyes of the gnaw wolf he had met on his very first night in the Beyond.

“Hamish, dear friend.” He paused. “Dearest wolf friend. We know each other so well that sometimes words are not needed.”

“Like now,” Hamish said quietly.

“You know what I am about to ask.”

“You want to return the ember to the volcanoes,” Hamish said steadily.

Coryn raised his head and the two friends peered into the each other’s eyes. In Hamish’s eyes, Coryn saw that green light, the same green that flickered near the center of the ember. He blinked and closed his eyes tight. “And when I return the ember, you become lame again. I am asking you to give up all hope of a normal life. Of finding a mate or rearing young.”

“You are also delivering the world from nachtmagen, Coryn,” Hamish said quietly. “You forget, Coryn, that when you retrieved the ember, not only were our twisted limbs repaired but we were given a choice. And we all chose to remain as wolves so that we could continue to serve.” The words of Fengo, the head gnaw wolf of the Sacred Watch, came back like a dim echo in his brain.
We have all chosen to remain as wolves, to serve you, King Coryn, but we have also chosen to regain what we had lost in order to serve the Sacred Ring. Our twisted limbs have been straightened. Our eyes restored, our tails made whole once more. But we shall always be prepared to serve you, good King Coryn, always. That is our pledge.

“So, Hamish. You agree to this?”

“We all do, Coryn. We are the Watch.”

“Tell no one yet. None of the Guardians know that I mean to return the ember, not even the Band. And
Hamish…” Coryn stopped and churred softly to himself.

“What is it?”

“I just had the oddest thought.”

“What is that, Coryn?”

“I was thinking that if it were put to me what I would choose to be in my life, and I could be any creature, I would not choose to be an owl.” He now peered down into the drip bowl in Hamish’s cave, where water collected from the seeping cracks in the rock when it rained. He studied the reflection, with the scar that cut diagonally across his face. The mirror image of his mother’s face gazed back at him. He tried to imagine his face without the scar, but the scar no longer bothered him. “If I could choose to be any other creature I would choose to be a wolf, Hamish.”

“You would give up wings?”

Coryn shrugged. “I know. It doesn’t make sense. I would be earthbound. I can’t explain it. But yes, I would choose to be a wolf and give up wings.”

And right now, the future of the owl kingdom depends, in fact, on two wolves, Hamish and Namara,
Coryn thought.
And Glaux willing, she is nearly to the Ice Talons.